


Psychopath

by Catherine_Medici



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-16 09:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4620834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherine_Medici/pseuds/Catherine_Medici
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth Keen's mind finally responds to the repeated trauma of intimate betrayal, the loss of her world and the strain of being on the run. An AU set after the events of the season 2 finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Don't read if you're not in a good headspace.  
> I own nothing

She'd washed the walls with blood.

Shadows played on his face as he surveyed the carnage she'd left in her wake. Blood splashed on nearly every surface. It looked like she'd ripped out his insides and gone finger painting on the walls. His stomach clenched. He turned to Mr. Kaplan, "I'm sorry Kate. You have enough on your plate right now. I'll try and...contain any more of these incidents." She'd just given him a sidelong look. He'd left. He couldn't be in that room for much longer.

She hadn't been right. Not since the day she remembered shooting her father. She'd lain her head on his shoulder and slept in the van. The woman who had woken up on the other side of that journey was not the same. She'd gone to sleep an angel and woken up as a demon.

The first time he'd taken her with him, to rendezvous with Brimley. They'd needed intel. They'd left her alone with the prisoner for five minutes to talk just outside the door. The prisoner had been securely chained. He'd come back into the room to find her circling the chained man, almost licking her lips, an odd gleam in her eyes. He should have been warned then. Her eyes were dilated, hypnotic. The strangest look had settled on her features. She'd appeared alien, exotic, deadly.

"You need to leave, Lizzie, you don't want to see this," he'd said. Apparently, she did.

She'd watched, fascinated, seating herself, ladylike on a chair, crossing her ankles and leaning forward on her elbows.

Torture was a necessary part of the business. He'd made his peace with that a long time ago. But he'd never enjoyed the necessity. Brimley was businesslike. A master blender of fear and pain, an expert at getting results. Not a man easily moved by much. Even he had stared at the feral way she'd bared her teeth when an ear had come off. She had...shifted and arched her body in time to his screams, as though she were hearing the shuddering exclamation of a lover's climax.

She'd flown at him, later that evening. She'd been waiting, pacing the room like a caged lioness. Her head had snapped up to look at him as he entered the room. He'd felt like an antelope on an African plain, about to be consumed. She'd rushed at him, fingernails raking his face, punching and grabbing for anything soft and vulnerable. She'd tried to throttle him. He'd easily restrained her against his body, panting heavily from the shock and the strain of holding this wild creature in his arms. She had struggled and writhed against him and to his horror and shame he found himself responding to her.

He had sensed her become still against him and he knew she had felt his growing hardness. He froze. She'd suddenly ground her pelvis violently against his. He remembered how his breath had hitched. She'd moaned and reached for his mouth with hers. He'd kissed her before he knew what he was doing.

He hadn't been thinking straight. Still so unsettled over the events of that day and the physical attack, he'd found himself peeling off his jacket and vest. She'd grabbed at his tie, almost choking him in her haste to remove it. She'd bitten his lower lip so hard it had bled.

She'd stopped then, fascinated. Softly and excruciatingly slow, she had licked the blood from his lip, swiping her tongue, probing his mouth, teasing, exploring.

He'd been out of his mind with want. He'd tried to be gentle, his hands smoothing and stroking. She'd slapped him away, rubbing herself on him like a cat in heat.

"Fuck me," she'd spat.

She'd shocked him. If he was honest, it had been painfully arousing, frightening in intensity. He'd surged forward for her. Pushing her onto the bed, he'd almost fallen on her.

She'd wrapped her legs so tightly around him and arched herself into him, taking his whole length, bucking up to meet him as he thrust into her. She had bitten him, not a love bite, but savage, feral and so very painful. He still had the faded marks on his cheek.

"I'm trying not to hurt you," she had whispered, biting his neck hard enough to to raise a painful bruise.

He walked alone in the dark.

Unshed tears stung his eyes. If it had been anyone else, anyone, he'd have put them down long before now.

Lizzie.


	2. Chapter 2

"It's all broken," she said to the nurse, her jailor.

She'd been examining her hair between her thumb and forefinger. When had her hair become so unkempt? She'd always enjoyed its silky thickness. She'd played with different styles over the years. Highlights, lowlights. She'd gone blonde once or twice. When was the last time?

Oh. Yes.

"We'd like to organize to have your hair cut, Elizabeth..." the nurse said gently. "But you've been very unstable lately. If you can show Mr. Kershaw that you're feeling better, I'm sure he would be happy to arrange a hair cut."

"Mr. Kershaw," she said primly, "can go fuck himself."

The nurse turned away, disappointed. Well, she'd been disappointing everyone for a while now. Nothing new there.

She tugged at her hair. All broken and split. Like her life.

She wanted Red. Wanted him and missed him so badly. Red had protected her, cherished her. Where was he? She felt that she'd been here for years. How long had it actually been? She'd give anything to see his face again.

She wasn't allowed outside. She'd tried to run too many times. They'd modified the house, building an indoor courtyard so that she could get some sun. She drifted aimlessly now amongst the ferns and the little water feature they'd installed. Mr. Kershaw was coming to visit her today. They always warned her a few days ahead. Trying to convince her that she should behave herself. They seemed slightly nervous around him. As though they were terrified of what he'd do if he ever took her complaints against them seriously.

She didn't know why she did it. She'd make up stories to tell him. To trick him.

She remembered the first time. Not when exactly, after all who was keeping time in this place? But she remembered what she'd said.

She'd taken a knife from the kitchen and hidden it. So much noise, cries of alarm. They'd yelled and thrown themselves on her. They'd restrained her, taking her knife away. Mr. Kershaw had come that night.

"Look! Look what they did to me!" She'd presented her scarred palm, pacing the floor. He'd sat in an armchair, his eyes the only thing moving in his face. He watched her, always watching her.

"Lizzie, they didn't do that to you, that's an old injury. From when you were a child."

"You want them to do this!" She'd snarled. "Where are the cameras? You must have them all over the place, where are they! TELL ME!" She'd slammed her body against him, shrieking until her throat hurt. He always let her. He never fought back, just held her down in his arms until she exhausted herself.

He'd come for her birthday this year. He'd bought her the music box Red had given her. She'd spat in his face. He'd stolen it from Red, she'd accused, as he wiped her spittle from his cheek with a crisp, white handkerchief.

She’d wondered about the spasm of pain she’d seen flash across his face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She’d been prowling the house all day waiting and now here he was.

“Hello Lizzie,” he said softly, taking off his coat and placing his hat on the table.

“Mr. Kershaw,” she acknowledged him stiffly.

He winced. Strange, he always appeared to dislike her speaking his name aloud. She moved to sit in his armchair. He liked to sit in this one when he visited. Good, let him sit somewhere else.

She was in a mood. He knew it. He sat down carefully in another chair.

“They tell me you want your hair cut.”

“ _They_ should stop blabbing everything I say to you.” She glared, folding her arms.

“Would you tell me yourself Lizzie? I’ve asked to speak to you on the phone before and you've always refused.”

“Why do you do this? Why do you visit me? You hate it, I can see that.”

He sat silent for a long while. “To punish myself, I suppose.”

“I make you suffer?”

“Not exactly Lizzie, rather I’ve made you suffer.”

“I don't even know you. How did you make me suffer?” She paused and then added craftily, “If you feel so bad, you should let me go. Let me find Red.”

“Lizzie, I’m visiting today for the last time. I don't think it's healthy for you to become so... upset each time. I had hoped…” he trailed off.

The world fell away from her. His visits were always there. Her touchstone. She would rage at him, throw everything she was up against him and he always stood firm and pliant at the same time, like a seawall.

“I just wanted to let you know in person,” he continued, standing and turning to gather his coat and hat.

She stood up, too. “No, no, I don’t think you should do that,” she said agitatedly.

He moved towards the door, his shoulders hunched, not looking at her.

“No, please!”

She shook like a leaf. Wanting desperately to stop him, to block the door. He couldn't leave her.

He was everything. He was...

“Red, RED!”

He turned back to her, hope blazing on his face like the sun.


	3. Chapter 3

“Be still,” he murmured, encouraging the small, frantic eyed dog with soothing words, while taking stock of the situation.

The female pup’s front paw was cruelly caught between the jaws of an ugly steel trap.

Red slowly approached the injured animal, his coat held out like a matador. With precision he threw the expensively tailored coat directly over the furry lump on the edge of the gravel path. The poor thing appeared to have languished there for days. Swiftly, he knelt down in the underbrush beside the path and prised open the trap with a grunt, scooping up the dog, ignoring its weak but indignant flailing under the fabric.

He made for the house.

Liz stood in the path, watching him go. He rarely left her by herself, especially not in the grounds of the property. But he wasn't looking backward at all, marching with purpose toward the door that led into the kitchen of the house he'd bought for her...recovery.

“You coming?” He called without turning his head.

She scrambled after him, thoughts of escape disappearing quickly as she half jogged up the path to catch up.

Sometimes she forgot why she was here and her old desperate need to run would surface. Then she would remember Red. He was with her every day now, never leaving her side, no longer slipping away from her and returning as a stranger.

There wasn't any way back to the Liz Keen that she was. But she could build anew on the foundations. Red was helping her. She managed a flicker of a smile at him as he looked up at her entrance. He was seated at the heavy wooden table, the dog whimpering in his lap. He was doing his best to soothe the animal, stroking it gently behind the ears.

She had been wounded once, trapped in just the same way. Profoundly betrayed, breathless from wave after wave of loss, she knew that it was no wonder that she had disintegrated. But the shame, the pain of lost memories and the fury so intense, she could only weep on her knees overwhelmed her more often than not.

He seemed to silently and mournfully understand when she needed to disappear into the bathroom for hours on end to scream into the spray of water from the showerhead and he was there when she needed to be held by him and cajoled to eat when she became so listless that lifting her head seemed a gargantuan effort.

Tears pricked her eyelids. Their lives were a complicated and tortured mess. They both had so much rebuilding to do. He had a head start on her but he wasn't done yet.

They'd heal together. Slowly, painfully and of course neither of them were expecting to be the same as they were once. But they were together.

And that was okay.


End file.
